Anarchist Mountain resident Nick Marty couldn’t attend last Wednesday’s public meeting, but in emails sent to some members of the community, the retired federal energy regulator accused FortisBC of trying to take the community’s preferred options off the table before the process starts. (Richard McGuire file photo)

A public meeting about FortisBC electricity rates last week has left some Anarchist Mountain residents cynical about the process, fearing that the utility is trying to remove the community’s preferred options from the table.

FortisBC, however, says all nine options received through consultation sessions “are still being considered.”

Mark McKenney, president of the Anarchist Mountain Community Society, says some residents are considering whether to apply for intervener status and hire a lawyer in the upcoming hearings.

“We are examining that,” said McKenney. “But whether or not that is going to be a community initiative or an initiative of affected parties is unclear yet. Our community society has not discussed this, so it’s very premature to link the community club.”

Nonetheless, there is widespread opposition on Anarchist Mountain to the present two-tier electricity rate system, which residents say discriminates against customers like themselves who don’t have access to natural gas for space and water heating.

McKenney said about 50 people turned out for the meeting last Wednesday at the Watermark Beach Resort and of those about 20 were Anarchist Mountain residents. Almost everybody at the meeting was annoyed, he said.

“The tone was extremely polite, but I would say most people are pretty cynical about the process,” said McKenney. “You could just hear it in the tone of people’s voices. These kinds of hearings – they’re not really meant to change things. They’re meant to go through a process.”

FortisBC outlined several options it is considering in its rate design review process that gets underway later this year.

But Anarchist residents believe FortisBC is trying to remove two of their preferred options from the table before the process starts.

A FortisBC slide discussing the possibility of a separate rate for customers without access to natural gas calls it “administratively cumbersome” and concludes “not a recommended option.”

The words “not a recommended option” were removed when the slide was shown at the Osoyoos meeting.

The option of a flat default residential rate is also apparently dismissed as causing “unacceptable bill impacts.”

FortisBC says all nine options – including a separate rate for customers without access to natural gas, as well as a flat rate – are being considered in light of several “guiding principles.”

These include recovery of cost of service, cost-based, easy to understand and administer, address customer concerns and promote conservation.

At the top of the list, FortisBC maintains that 95 per cent of its customers should have bill increases no greater than 10 per cent compared to existing rates.

But Nick Marty, an Anarchist Mountain resident who is a vocal critic of two-tier rates, argues that the 95-per-cent principle is “actually to maintain the shifting of the burden of rate increases onto a minority of customers.”

Effectively, FortisBC is making customers without access to natural gas subsidize customers with natural gas, says Marty, a retired federal energy regulator.

Marty could not attend last week’s meeting, but he circulated emails to some Anarchist Mountain residents ahead of the meeting calling the FortisBC strategy “very clever and very deceitful.”

“Fortis wanted to get the flat rate off the table before they made their application to BCUC (British Columbia Utilities Commission),” Marty wrote. “So they did a pre-screening of the options … and then rejected the flat rate option because it results in ‘unacceptable bill impacts.’ Pretty sneaky eh! And totally deplorable.”

FortisBC, however, says its goal is to consult and provide people with information.

“We believe that collaboration is key to finding an option that is reasonable and mutually beneficial,” said Nicole Bogdanovic, a FortisBC spokesperson, in an emailed reply to the Osoyoos Times.

“We will continue to solicit feedback from the public until the end of September,” she continued. “Customers are invited to submit ideas online at fortisbc.com/electricityratedesign or email [email protected] until Sept. 30, 2017.”

In a letter to FortisBC, McKenney argues that he has reduced his annual electrical consumption by 23 per cent, but has seen costs increase 108 per cent from 2007 to 2016.

“Your current rate structure is discriminatory,” McKenney writes. “It does not encourage energy conservation and it does not support the environmental objectives set by the Province of B.C. The structure is forcing people to burn fossil fuels to avoid buying electricity at discriminatory prices.”

RICHARD McGUIRE

Osoyoos Times